Exploring the Requirements of Tourism Labour Market in Armenia

Abstract

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on the issue of the main skills of employees required in the labour market. Tourism labour market needs skilled specialists with professional knowledge as the advancement of tourism industry depends on skilled workers of the sphere. Systematization literary sources and approaches for solving the problem indicate that different authors have investigated and offered different skills of tourism labour. The main purpose of the research was to analyse job ads of the labour market in Armenia in order to find out the main skills required in the labour market and the connections of different factors of job ads, which influence the development of tourism labour market. For this purpose, 390 job ads were observed. The key results were obtained by using Crosstabulations with Pearson Chi-square, Phi, Cramer's V and Contingency coefficient testing. Findings indicate that statistically significant relations were found between the main factors of jobs: type of the organization, education degree, knowledge of languages, computer skills and salary rate. Besides, the main skills required in labour market were revealed: communication skills, ability to work in a team, high level of responsibility, excellent knowledge of major tourism destinations, organizational skills, and analytical skills. The relevance of the decision of this scientific problem is that tourism industry and touristic needs change very fast, so the requirements of labour market also are changeable and tourism education must be modern and flexible in order to meet the requirements of the labour market. Investigation of the topic in the paper is carried out in the following logical sequence: the main literature was observed, then the job ads were analysed, after which the statistical analyses were done between the main factors of job ads. In the end, some conclusions were done. The object of the research is the tourism labour market and job ads in Armenia. The paper presents the results of an empirical analysis, which showed the main skills that tourism specialists must have in order to be competitive in the tourism industry. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that labour market needs new techniques and solutions, so tourism education must be able to meet these requirements. The findings are very good indicators for institutions that prepare specialists, for workers of the tourism industry, and for state organs to improve labour policy in the sphere. The findings have practical significance and based on the results many spheres of science and education may be improved, such as tourism education, labour market organization, labour economics and management. The main approach should be the elaboration of new policies of tourism education and labour development. The private sector and state organs must collaborate in the above-mentioned directions.